Adjustable coat hanger



Oct. 24, 1961 J. THURBER ADJUSTABLE COAT HANGER Filed Jan. 13. 1959 (7 1M155 L 7'Huee4s'e IN VEN TOR.

BY Amazes o/v, SPHIV6LE United States This invention relates to clothes hangers and particularly to clothes hangers having adjustable and removable pads for firmly supporting the shoulders of a coat or the like against wrinkling or crushing while it is supported on the hanger.

There have, heretofore, been various attempts to provide a clothes hanger having adjustable or removable shoulder pads, however, all of these prior devices have either been too complex, thereby involving expensive manufacturing problems which made the hangers commercially infeasible, or else they have been of such flimsy and unsoundly arranged construction that they were not easy to handle, were broken easily and were impossible to adequately repair.

One object of this invention is to provide a clothes hanger which is simple in construction and easy to assemble and use.

Another object of this invention is to provide a clothes hanger having shoulder pads which are easily adjusted or quickly removed if necessary.

Other objects of this invention are to provide an improved device of the character described, that is easily and economically produced, which is sturdy in construction, and which is highly eflicient in operation.

With the above and related objects in view, this invention consists in the details of construction and combination of parts as will be more fully understood from the following description, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawing in which:

FIG. 1 is a front elevational view of a hanger embodying the invention,

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the hanger of FIG. 1,

FIG. 3 is a side elevational view of the hanger of FIG. 1,

FIG. 4 is an enlarged cross-sectional View taken on line 4-4 of FIG. 1,

FIG. 5 is afragmentary perspective view of an end portion of the hanger of FIG. 1 before it is completely assembled,

FIG. 6 is a perspective view, similar to FIG. 5, but showing the hanger after assembly, parts being omitted.

Referring now in greater detail to the drawings wherein similar reference characters refer to similar parts, there is shown a hanger, generally indicated at 10 comprising a rod 12 of generally inverted V-shape, this rod being slightly concave, as indicated best in FIGS. 4, 5 and 6. The rod 12, which is adapted to support a coat or the like, may be made of wood, metal, plastic, glass, cardboard, or the like, depending on the purpose for which the hanger is to be used.

A cross-bar 14, adapted to hold a pair of folded-over trousers, shirt, or the like, is connected at either end 16 and 18 to the rod 12, the connection being either by welding, soldering, gluing, nailing, bolting, screwing, jointing, or the like, depending on the material of which the hanger is constructed. The rod 12 and cross-bar 14 may even be made integral with each other, if desired.

At the apex 20 of the inverted V-shaped rod 12, an opening 22 is provided, and through this opening extends the straight stem 24 of a hook 26. A flange or knob 28 is provided at the end of portion 24 to act as a stop to prevent the book from falling out of the opening 22.

At each end of the rod 12 is provided a flap, indicated at 30 at one end and at 32 at the other end. These flaps atent 0 i 3,005,579 Patented Oct. 24,, 1961 30 and 32 are connected to the main portion of the rod 12 by flexible connecting strips 34 and 36. If the rod 12 is made of relatively flexible material such as sheet metal, the various flexible types of plastic, or cardboard-the flaps 30 and 32 and strips 34 and 36 may be integral with the main portion of the rod, however, if the rod is made of glass, wood or of any of the various rigid types of plastics, the connecting strips, which may orv may not be integral with the flaps may be made of flexible material separable from the rod 12. In any event, the flaps 3t) and 32 are provided for the purpose of acting as limit stops to keep the shoulder-pad assemblies 38 and 40, to be hereinafter more fully described, on the rod 12.

The pad assemblies 38 and 4t} are identical, and the description of one serves as a description of the other. Viewing pad assembly 38 as an example, therefore, it is seen that this pad assembly comprises a pad 42 which, in plan view, is tapered inwardly, as best seen in FIG. 2 and which has outwardly tapered sides 44, as best seen in FIG. 4, in combination with a pair of walls 48 and 50 depending from the bottom surface 46 of the pad, and having oppositely extending lateral flanges 52 and 54. These walls 48 and 50 together with their respective flanges 52 and 54, combine to form a channel member, generally indicated as 56. This channel member 56 is adapted to slidably embrace the inclined walls of the rod 12, as best illustrated in FIG. 4. The pad 42 may be constructed of either resilient or rigid material and may be formed either integrally with or separably from the channel member 56, this channel member being also either resilient or rigid.

The pad assemblies 38 and 40 are assembled on the rod 12 by sliding the channel members onto the rod 12 from either end of the rod with the pad uppermost. At this time, the flaps 30 and 32 are in the common inclined plane of their corresponding portions of the rod 12, as shown in FIG. 5. After the pad assemblies have been inserted onto the rod, the flaps are bent down as shown in FIG. 6, and as also indicated in FIG. 1. When the flaps are bent down in this manner, they act as limit stops to prevent the channel members on the pad assemblies from sliding oif the rod. In this simple manner, the pad assemblies may be assembled or taken off the hanger merely by bending the flaps up to enable the pad assemblies to slide on or off, or by bending the flaps down to prevent the pad assemblies from sliding ofl. If it is desired to mount the pad assemblies for adjustment on the hanger, the sliding fit between the channel members and the inclined walls of the rod 12 is made tight enough to cause the channel members to frictionally bind against the rod, but yet loose enough to permit relative sliding movement when a longitudinally directed force is exerted on the pad assemblies.

Although this invention has been dmcribed in considerable detail, such description is intended as being illustrative rather than limiting, since the invention may be variously embodied, and the scope of the invention is to be determined as claimed.

Having thus set forth and disclosed the nature of this invention, what is claimed is:

l. A clothes hanger comprising an inverted V-shaped member having legs of V-shaped cross section, a crossbar extending between opposite legs of the inverted V-shaped member and aflixed thereto adjacent the ends thereof, a pad including slide means mounted on each of said legs, said slide means being resilient and adapted to slidably engage the surfaces of each leg under bias to frictionally restrain the movement of said pad against unintentional displacement along the length of a leg and stop means adjacent the extremity of each leg for limiting movement of said pads therebeyond wherein said stop means comprises a flap extending from each end of 3 a leg of said V-shaped member, each of said flaps being flexibly joined to the respective ends of said legs, said flaps being so constructed and arranged that when bent into common alignment with a leg, a pad may be inserted and removed therefrom and when bent out of alignment, a pad is prevented from being removed.

2. A clothes hanger comprising an inverted V-shaped member having legs of V-shaped cross section, a crossbar extending between opposite legs of the inverted V- shaped member and aflixed thereto adjacent the ends thereof, a pad including slide means mounted on each of said legs, said slide means being resilient and adapted to slidably engage the surfaces of each leg under bias to frictionally restrain the movement of said pad against unintentional displacement along the length of a leg and 15 2,319,823

stop means adjacent the extremity of each leg for limiting movement of said pads therebeyond, said stop means being adapted for movement selectively into pad releasing and pad retaining positions wherein when the stop means is in the pad releasing position a pad may be inserted and removed from a leg and when the stop means is in the pad retaining position, a pad is prevented from being removed.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 395,884- Donaldson Jan. 8, 1889 892,149 Gould June 30, 1908 Thurber Jan. 14, 1958 

